CONVENTI HIGHLIG $ e Lawrence McBrearty USWA president Says jobs are going to Mexico Being ina steel town, it wouldn’t be right to have a convention in Sault Ste. Marie and not hear a steelworker speak. During the final day of the convention, Lawrence McBrearty, the Canadian Director for the United Steelwork- ers of America, talked about his union’s inter- national struggles. Since Brian Mulroney signed the free trade agreement with the United States in 1988, the USWA has seen job loss to non-union plants in Mexico. “Our jobs that have gone to Mexico won’t be coming back and we cannot blame the Mexi- can people and the Mexican working men and women, and a lot of them, children, for what’s happening,” he said. The union had a plant in Waterloo with 1,200 members called Custom Trim that pro- duced dash boards, steering wheels and other components for General Motors, and Chrysler. The plant closed in the early 1990’s and grad- ually reopened in different Mexican maquila plants and Brownsville Texas. Jobs that paid Canadians $12 to $15 per hour went to Mexico where wages are 60 cents an hour. “When they can make $40.00 per week, ° Federal New Democrat Leader, Alexa McDonough, said the party is working together with labour. McDonough says NDP and labour must set values and objectives One fifth of the world’s goods produced are traded between nations, said NDP Federal Leader Alexa McDonough and “putting our heads in the sand and saying that we don’t want to nee anything about change isn’t going to work.” “Some of you may know that the United Nations Development Report recently set out how clearly we have the potential as we go into the 21st Century to eradicate poverty in the world, to eradicate hunger, to make sure that nobody is forced to go without shelter. And that’s in the interests of I.W.A. folks.” But reality, said McDonough, is that 1.3 bil- lion people in this world live on less than one dol- lar a day. “Unfettered globalization...has widened the gap between the have and the have nots,” she said. “I know that every single dele- gate at this convention wants to see ways to close the gap between the have and the have nots, between the rich and the poor and wants to find the ways to end poverty in our midst. Every one of us wants to build a better life for working people, wants to create, in Canada and around the world, a better, more humane soci- ety.” “We must and we can offer to Canadians both the enduring principles, the principles of equal- ity and justice and solidarity, and also the posi- tive practical solutions that will allow us to translate those principles into reality; solutions that say, yes we welcome the opportunities that are open to us. Yes we’re ready to work together as citizens, as farmers, as foresters, as trade unionists as cooperatives, as businesses and as voluntary organizations.” McDonough told the delegates that the NDP is making progress in pulling its constituencies together on the provincial and federal scene. There are NDP governments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C. and in the Yukon. The newest Manitoba NDP government led by Gary Doer, was at only 6 percent in the polls when he began to lead the party 11 years ago. McDonough said because Doer “worked his guts out over the last 11 years and because in Manitoba they have absolutely demonstrated how the partnership between labour and the New Democratic Party can be made to work and get results, he’s the Premier today and we all have a lot to celebrate.” The convention was reminded that when she was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1980, McDonough was the sole NDP’er in the entire Maritimes. Today there are 23 NDP MP’s in Atlantic Canada. “I think that what we do know is that when we work together, when we're clear about what those values are and what our objectives are, then we can get results.” a they’ve got a good week,” said McBrearty. “Now they (the company) didn’t move to Mexico to help the workers in Mexico. They moved to Mexico to make more money,” he said. There are modern, high tech plants while workers live in poverty. “When you go and see where the workers and the families are living, nobody in this room has a hunting camp like that,” he said. “It’s cardboard, no floors, no water, no toilets, nothing. And if this is globalization, we’ve got a problem.” He said the Steelworkers’ Humanity Fund is working in Mexico to assist independent unions, affiliated to the FAT (Frente Autentico de Trabajo) set up a strike fund and struc- tures. McBrearty warned of the upcoming Free Trade Agreement of the Americas which is supposed to be in place by 2005. It will include such all countries of Latin America into a giant free trade zone with Canada, the United States and Mexico. He said the rapid pace of globalization is see- ing more mega-mergers between big compa- nies as witnessed by the merger in the alu- minum industry between Alcoa and Reynolds. The Steelworkers, which have 8,000 mem- bers in the aluminum sector in Canada and -over 40,000 in the United States, is getting together with the International Metalworkers Association to see what can be done to save jobs. Alcan also merged with two large European firms and is moving its head office from Mon- treal to New York. McBrearty said that Alcan plants in Canada will be closing as a result. - ——. Neen sa 26/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1999